A Happy Ending?
Although, in most of the countries referred to in this book, many of the methods of execution are still being administered and the scope for their associated gaffes therefore continues unabated, one method at least will never bring untold agony to its victims ever again, the abolition of being ‘broken on the wheel’ allowing this book at least to finish with a Happy Ending.
The event which brought this about started with a domestic quarrel over politics. In 1788 an elderly, conservative-minded blacksmith, Mathurin Louschart, and his family lived in a house in the Rue de Satory in Versailles. Mathurin, much respected by the local community, had a son, Jean, whom he loved dearly, even when the young man, instead of wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps around the anvil, started to show signs of having radical ideals.
One day at dinner, as related in the Sanson Memoirs:
‘Jean, carried away by his enthusiasm, extolled the socialist merits of Voltaire and Rousseau; Master Louschart was at first astounded at his audacity, but his stupefaction was soon replaced by anger. A dispute followed and Jean was peremptorily ordered to hold his tongue. The young man, although respectful, was passionate and headstrong, and disobeyed the injunction, retorting that his father had a novel way of settling a discussion. This did not mend matters, and at length his father showed him the door. It was in vain that Jean expressed his regret and readiness to apologise; the old smith would listen to no excuse, and turned him out.’
Now it so happened that a Mme Verdier, a distant relative, was also living in the house, and she had a very attractive daughter, Helen. Helen and Jean thought a lot of each other, which is more than could be said of Helen’s mother who, on hearing of the controversy, encouraged Mathurin to have nothing further to do with his son; moreover her influence over him was so great that she actually urged him to become Jean’s rival and seek to marry Helen, at the same time ordering her daughter to forget all about Jean and prepare to accept Mathurin’s proposal of marriage.
Helen could never accept this, and she and Jean made secret plans to elope. Accordingly, Jean kept the rendezvous outside his father’s house but, instead of being joined by his sweetheart, he heard her screams from inside; breaking the door down, he rushed in to discover that her mother had found out their intentions and was now thrashing her unmercifully while his father looked on.
The Memoirs continued:
‘Jean sprang forward to protect Helen, but his father stopped him and, with the utmost violence, upbraided him for what he styled his infamous conduct. Mme Verdier now came forward and goaded the old smith to such a climax of fury that he spat in his son’s face. Jean had suffered in silence up to now, but this last insult was too much for his temper and he retorted with words of extreme bitterness. At this, Mathurin’s rage knew no bounds; he seized a crowbar and aimed a terrific blow at his son.
The passage in which this scene took place was so narrow that the bar struck against the wall as it came down, and Jean was able to leap aside. Helen, who was watching with terror, cried to Jean to fly. The young man followed her advice and made for the door while his father was raising the crowbar for the second time, but the woman Verdier had anticipated Jean’s intention and was resolutely standing against the door. Mathurin struck a second blow, and again missed his aim. As he was raising it for the third time, Jean rushed past him and tried to enter the workshop, whence he intended to jump through the window into the street, but the door to the workshop was locked and his father was giving chase; as he tried to break it open, a heavy piece of iron whizzed just above his head and struck one of the panels, which it shattered to pieces. Old Louschart had laid down his crowbar and had hurled his heavy hammer. He now came up and grappled with Jean, who now felt that the only way he could save his life was to master him; disarming his father, he tore himself away from the older man’s grasp and took to his heels. As he was crossing the threshold, hardly knowing what he was about, he threw the hammer behind him and rushed out. So rapid was his flight that he did not hear a cry from the workshop – Master Mathurin had just risen from the ground; the heavy mass of iron, the hammer, had struck him above the right eye and, fracturing his skull, had killed him instantly.’
The consequences were as expected; the crime of patricide was so rare that from the meanest cottage to the royal court it was the only topic of conversation, and the King himself ordered the Public Prosecutor to proceed against the culprit without a moment’s delay. Mme Verdier’s evidence, that she had witnessed Jean deliver the fatal blow, was sufficient proof, but when Jean was arrested, he was shocked and dismayed, for he had been totally unaware that the hammer had even struck his father; so shocked in fact that when taken back to the house, he rushed forward to his father’s corpse and passionately kissed the pale face, a gesture which was immediately dismissed as one of sheer hypocrisy by the local magistrate.
The public at first condemned Jean as a brutal murderer, but their sentiments slowly started to swing in his favour, not least when they realised that it must indeed have been a terrible accident and that he had been the victim of the acrimonious temper and vicious nature of Mme Verdier. So strong was their support that although at his trial the court found him guilty and sentenced him to death, they did not insist on the usual amende honorable, a punishment which included the prior amputation of the hand that had struck the blow, and by way of further mitigation, they stipulated that although he was to be broken on the wheel, he was to be secretly strangled before all his limbs were shattered.
But public opinion had already come to the conclusion that Jean was innocent of murder, and the news that his forthcoming execution would take place on 3 August caused wild excitement. Henri Sanson wrote:
‘On the morning of the previous day my grandfather [Charles Henri Sanson] sent from Paris two carts containing the instruments of torture, and beams and boards for the erection of the scaffold. He himself went to Versailles in the afternoon. News of the rising emotions of that city’s residents had not reached the capital and Charles Henri was so thoroughly convinced that he had to deal with a common criminal that he was greatly surprised when he found the whole town in a fever. The Place Saint-Louis was covered with so great a multitude that his assistants and carpenters could hardly go on with their work. No hostility was manifested, however; the crowd was noisy but its mood was gay; the name of Jean was scarcely mentioned, and the workmen who were erecting the scaffold were merely jeered. However, when one of the carpenters struck an urchin who was throwing stones at him, cries of ‘Death!’ were uttered; in an instant all the mocking faces became dark and threatening. The assistants and carpenters were attacked and their lives were in great danger. But a body of about a hundred men, easily identified as smiths by their athletic proportions and brawny faces, interfered, and partly by strength, partly by persuasion, they induced the crowd to retreat.
So far, my grandfather had not bestowed much attention to this popular demonstration, but he became more attentive when the interference of the smiths took place. He directed his assistants to finish the erection of the scaffold as quickly as possible, then he returned to Paris and lost no time in acquainting the authorities with his apprehensions.
The multitude which had thronged the Place Saint-Louis retired during the night; only a few young men remained to watch what took place around the scaffold. Meanwhile Charles Henri took what precautions he could, causing a strong paling [fence] to be erected around the scaffold, and on their side, the magistrates took it upon themselves to advance the hour of execution.
It was two o’clock in the morning when my grandfather went to the prison, to find Jean Louschart stretched out on his pallet when he entered the condemned cell. The doomed man rose and calmly surveyed him. The clerk of the Parliament read aloud the sentence, to which he listened with much attention. He then murmured a few words, among which only those of ‘Poor father!’ were heard, and he added in a loud voice, ‘In two hours I shall justify myself before him!’ Then, on bei
ng told that it was time to depart for the scaffold, he turned to the executioner, saying, ‘You can be in no greater hurry than I am, sir.’
At half past four the cart moved in the direction of the Place Saint-Louis. The executive magistrates were in hopes that because of the granting of merciful retentum, the whole affair could be quickly over and done with before the population awoke, but they soon perceived their mistake, for the streets were swarming with people, the whole population was astir. Deafening clamours broke from the crowd as the cart appeared, and it was with the greatest difficulty that it made its way. The prisoner did not even seem to suspect that all this tumult was caused by the sympathy people felt for him. At the corner of the Rue de Satory a piercing cry was heard and a girl was seen waving her handkerchief. Jean Louschart looked up and, rising to his feet, he tried to smile, and exclaimed, ‘Farewell, Helen, farewell!’ At that moment a smith of tall stature and Herculean proportions who was walking near the cart, cried in a thundering voice, ‘It is au revoir you should say, Jean. Are good fellows like you to be broken on the wheel?’
One of the guards on horseback drove him away, but applause and cheers came from every quarter. It was obvious by the pale faces of the Parliament clerk, the policemen and the soldiers surrounding the cart that the agents of the law were anything but confident. The scaffold, however, was reached without accident. The crowd was thickly packed in the Place Saint-Louis, and as the cart stopped, Jean Louschart addressed a question to the priest who was sitting near him, and my grandfather heard the latter reply, ‘To save you.’ The doomed man said in a feverish voice and with some impatience, ‘No, father, even if I am innocent of the intention of committing the crime, my hands are nevertheless stained with blood. I must die, and I wish to die – be quick, sir,’ he added to my grandfather.
‘Sir,’ exclaimed Charles Henri, pointing to the infuriated masses who were already breaking through the palisade, ‘if there is a man in danger of death here, it is not you!’
Hardly were the words out of his mouth than a tempest of groans and screams burst forth. The paling was broken and trodden underfoot, and hundreds of men rushed on to the scaffold. The smith who had earlier spoken to Jean was among the foremost; he seized the prisoner in his muscular arms, cut his bonds, and prepared to carry him off in triumph. An extraordinary scene now took place; Jean Louschart struggled violently against his saviours, then turned to the executioner and begged for death with the earnestness usually displayed by other culprits in asking for mercy. But his friends surrounded him and at length succeeded in carrying him away.
My grandfather’s position was now perilous in the extreme; separated from his assistants, alone amidst a crowd that knew him only too well, he really thought that his last hour was at hand. His countenance probably betrayed his apprehensions, for the tall smith came up to him and seized his arm; ‘Fear nothing, Charlot,’ the smith exclaimed [Charlot was his nickname, which was also bestowed on subsequent executioners, in the same way as English hangmen were all called ‘Jack Ketch’ after an earlier executioner]. ‘We don’t want to harm you, but your equipment; henceforth Charlot, you must kill your customers without making them suffer first.’ And turning to the crowd he added, ‘Let him pass, and take care he is not hurt.’
This harangue calmed the crowd, and my grandfather was allowed to withdraw. In less time than it takes to write this account, the scaffold and all its accessories were broken into pieces, which were then thrown on to the pile of wood prepared for the burning of the victim’s mutilated body, and the terrible Wheel was placed on the summit as a kind of crown. The heap was set ablaze, and men and women, holding each other by the hand, formed an immense ring and danced around the crackling pile until it was reduced to ashes.’
Upon news of the debacle reaching the ears of King Louis XVI in Paris, he granted a pardon to Jean Louschart; nor was that all, for he decreed that the penalty of being broken on the wheel should be abolished with immediate effect. Regrettably history does not record whether Jean married his Helen – one would certainly like to think so.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Part One: Methods of Torture and Execution
Part Two: The Unfortunate Victims
Axe
Boiled in Oil
Branding
Burned at the Stake
Electric Chair
Firing Squad
Gas Chamber
Guillotine
Hanging
Lethal Injection
Sword
The Wheel
Happy Ending?
Select Bibliography
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part One: Methods of Torture and Execution
Part Two: The Unfortunate Victims
Axe
Boiled in Oil
Branding
Burned at the Stake
Electric Chair
Firing Squad
Gas Chamber
Guillotine
Hanging
Lethal Injection
Sword
The Wheel
Happy Ending?
Select Bibliography
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part One: Methods of Torture and Execution
Part Two: The Unfortunate Victims
Axe
Boiled in Oil
Branding
Burned at the Stake
Electric Chair
Firing Squad
Gas Chamber
Guillotine
> Hanging
Lethal Injection
Sword
The Wheel
Happy Ending?
Select Bibliography
Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders Page 21
